The present invention relates to a carbon material for producing metal-including fullerene (hereinafter means to endohedral metallofullerenes) in a high yield from which endohedral metallofullerenes used as micro electronic circuits in a microelectronics field or contrast media for MRI in a medical field can be produced in a high yield, and more specifically relates to a carbon material for producing endohedral metallofullerenes in a high yield consisting of a mixture of a metal or a metal compound used as an electrode in arc discharge or a target for laser irradiation with a carbonaceous material.
Endohedral metallofullerenes have been produced by methods comprising the steps of evaporating a raw material between a metal or metal compound-containing carbon electrode and an electrode block by arc discharge using the carbon electrode as the raw material, recovering produced soot, and extracting the endohedral metallofullerenes from the recovered soot or comprising the steps of irradiating metal or metal compound-containing carbon material with a laser, recovering soot produced by evaporating it from said carbon material and extracting the endohedral metallofullerenes from the recovered soot, or comprising the steps of causing high electric-current to flow to a metal or metal compound-containing carbon material to evaporated the carbon material, recovering produced soot and extracting the endohedral metallofullerenes from the recovered soot.
However, in these, methods, an amount of the endohedral metallofullerenes extracted from the produced soot are small because an amount of the produced soot is small. Additionally the endohedral metallofullerenes extracted from this soot are only about 1/100 to 1/10 of the amount of the soot. Thus there is a problem that a yield of the endohedral metallofullerenes is too small in industrially producing it.